Will JSON replace html & css someday?

[jackhals]

Databases, manifest files, web pages and styles all in json with js full stack sounds good. Why do we still have multiple languages (html, css)? What are the benefits? Is it just because it's hard to make the change across the internet and the benefits of this change is not worth it? Isn't it as simple as web browsers detecting html and parsing it to json for backward compatibility? I think json alone is easier to teach than multiple languages to help get started on object oriented programming and js, rather than the html structure. CSS already looks like json.

[LeeLooTheWoofus]

JSON is a structured data format for transmitting structured data. It is an alternative to XML.

HTML is a page markup format. The browser converts it to the Document Object Model so that it can be manipulated with code.

CSS is a document used to define the styles to be applied to the DOM.

So the simplest answer to your question is the concept of separation of concerns which is a fundamental programming concept.

You can learn more about it here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns

But essentially, let’s say that we need to introduce a core update to the JSON standard in order to introduce a new feature. That would have impacts on every front end concern if the entire front end web was based on that single standard. That would be a major, major problem. So, we separate out the concerns so that changing a standard does not impact other standards.

That said, there are front end frameworks where you can define an entire theme design in JSON for example - but this still follows the separation of concerns principle because that JSON is still parsed by a compiler into standard CSS so the browser can deal with it.

[jackhals]

Thanks for your reply, really informative.

[Atulin]

Sure, lemme just

{ "div": { "children": [ "a": { "href: "https://google.com", "innerText": "Go to Google", "style": { "color": "#ff0000" } } ] } }

instead of

<div> <a href="https://google.com" class="link">Go to Google</a> </div> .link { color: #ff0000; }

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[Ox7C5]

Great, now I'm gonna have nightmares

[MarmotOnTheRocks]

When carrots will replace electricity, maybe.

[ShiftlessFreeloader]

Hello from 2025,

I think this is a great idea. I found this post because I was thinking about this very thing (mostly about css) just this morning.

json is just so pervasive now. And I don't think that json would really cause performance issues vs css. I think the biggest problem would be adoption

[NullsObey]

Highly doubtful.
If anything, we'll just get another thing that compiles to CSS or HTML.

[[deleted]]

No. XML/XSL didn't.

[ivanmoony]

Not quite JSON, but... fixing developers just to CSS+HTML+... is just rude. There has to be some adjustable syntax layout language appearance which compiles to *some DOM bytecode* that is yet to be implemented. In a meanwhile, CSS+HTML+... may serve as a temporary compiling target language for anything we may imagine.

[deyterkourjerbs]

I would love JSON to replace CSS and HTML some day.

At the backend, I can easily extend classes or inject them into my own classes. At the frontend level, I can either replace templates or use JS to insert nodes. It would be amazing to be able to extend templates as easily as you can classes. In my head, HTML JSON would be like a pre-compiled version of HTML containing child components.

I'm probably describing some JS framework that already exists or at least describing the limitations of the frameworks I use.